by Elin Wyn
“What the hell happened here?” I said as we closed in on the city. The protective walls of the northwest district were riddled with holes, and the watchtowers had all crumbled, large blocks of granite lying abandoned on the ground. To cover up the holes in the walls, wooden palisades had been erected.
“I told you,” Sylor said. “Duvest fell during the war. The city you knew...it’s gone now.”
He was right. I knew Duvest as a metropolitan city, one brimming with hopeful merchants and people trying to make their way through life, but the city in front of me was nothing like that. Aside from the few human guards patrolling the perimeter, there didn’t seem to be much activity.
“Hold it!” One of the guards shouted as he saw us approach. Climbing down from the makeshift watchtower he was in, rifle slung over his shoulder, he then made his way toward us.
“At ease, soldier,” Sylor said, completely relaxed. “We’re just passing through. We need to pick up something from the city, and we’ll be on our way.”
“I’m not sure what it is you think you’re going to pick up in here,” the guard said, pointing with his thumb to the crumbling walls behind him. “But suit yourself. The Valorni are friends of the Duvest people.” He eyed me for a moment, but didn’t say a word. Apparently, the fact that I was Sylor’s companion was enough for the guard to wave me in. I liked that: to an extent, Sylor was my all-access pass.
“Thank you, soldier,” Sylor said, and then we followed after the guard as he led the way toward the main city gate. He shouted someone’s name, both hands around his mouth to amplify his voice, and I immediately heard a metallic rumbling sound. A second later and the gate was being heaved up by unseen hands.
“Enjoy your stay,” the guard said, casually whistling as he returned to his watchtower.
“They don’t seem too concerned with security,” I told Sylor as we stepped inside the city. Ruins flanked the main avenue on both sides. Piles of rubble had accumulated on the sides of the road, as well, probably part of the cleanup effort. Still, Duvest looked like shit. The Xathi bastards had really outdone themselves here.
“Now that the Xathi are gone, everyone’s feeling more relaxed,” Sylor explained. “Besides, it’s not like there’s a lot to protect in the city. Almost all civilians have left. This place is just a ghost town.”
“That’s depressing.”
“I know,” he nodded. “Still, General Rouhr has plans for the city. As soon as we manage to liberate Nyheim, the plan is to start rebuilding Duvest. Hopefully, in a couple of months the people will return here, and life in Duvest will go back to what it once was.”
“I seriously doubt that,” I whispered, even though deep down I hoped Sylor was right. But a war left more than just ruins in its wake: some scars remained hidden from sight, and it’d take more than a decade for the wounds to finally start healing.
“Where to?” Sylor asked me, and I took a moment to orient myself. The fact that the streets were practically deserted was a shock, and I was having a hard time reconciling the Duvest I knew with the one I was in right now. “Another water treatment facility?” he offered.
“No,” I shook my head. “Not in Duvest. In here, we usually go through an old factory,” I continued, suddenly remembering where I had to go. Navigating the maze of streets more easily now, we made our way to the small industrial area Duvest had always been proud of, and pointed toward a dilapidated building right at the end of the road we were on. The war against the Xathi didn’t seem to have affected it, but the building still looked like shit, all the same. Moss covered large sections of the wall, and grass was already jutting out from the pavement right in front of the entrance. The windows were all gone, and only one door remained, although it hung limply from half its hinges.
“The underground people should really invest in landscaping,” Sylor commented, and I punched his arm playfully.
“Really funny,” I said, already stepping inside the building. It was completely empty, aside from some broken glass that littered the floor. It seemed that even the few things that had been bolted to the floor had been taken away. No surprise there: whatever the underground people could take, they would take.
With Sylor trailing after me, I made my way toward the basement floor, the one used by the maintenance engineers when the factory was still in operation. There, I headed straight toward the control room that housed the main water valves. “Flashlight,” I asked, and Sylor placed it my hand. I turned it on, shining some light into the maze of pipes that snaked across the room, and immediately spotted the large hole someone had made in one of the walls.
“Now it’s just a short hike through one of the tunnels,” I said, examining the hole in the wall with the flashlight. It was large enough for Sylor to fit through, and it seemed clean enough to indicate that, even after the war, people had been coming in and out of Duvest’s underground.
Just like I had predicted.
We spent the next ten minutes walking down the tunnel, and we only stopped when we heard the sound of footsteps right ahead of us. Then, all of a sudden, a large figure emerged from the shadows and stood right in front of us. He was a human male and, even though he was smaller than Sylor, he was large enough to be intimidating.
“Who comes there?” he snarled, drawing a gun from his holster. He didn’t point it at us, so I took that as a good omen.
“Calm down,” I said, stepping forward and lowering my flashlight. “We don’t want to cause any trouble. We’re just on our way to the market.”
“With one of those things?” the man asked me, eyeing Sylor as he spoke. As his eyes met those of the Valorni, I noticed his fingers tightening around his gun. Crap. “If you know of the market, then you can go through. But he has to stay. No way am I going to let one of those things through.”
“He’s not a thing,” I found myself saying, annoyed by the man’s tone. Still, he held the power in this situation. I couldn’t start arguing with him. Of course, I wasn’t worried about him stopping us...with Sylor by my side, I was pretty sure we could simply force our way into the underground. But I didn’t think knocking out one the sentries would help our cause. “He’s a Valorni, and he’s my bodyguard.”
“Hired muscle, huh?” the man said appraisingly, looking at Sylor as if he was examining some wild animal. “He does look scary, I’ll give you that. Does he speak?”
I noticed Sylor was about to open his mouth, so I stomped on his foot. “Just a few words,” I said with a smile. “He’s not that talkative.”
“Look, I get it. Having a bodyguard is a good idea if you can afford it,” the man continued. “But I can’t let him get to the underground. People could freak out, and I’m really not in the mood for that.”
“What’s your name?” I started, trying a different approach.
“Warren.”
“So, Warren...am I supposed to tell Odeon you forced me to leave my bodyguard behind? This guy here,” I said, patting Sylor’s arm, “is with me because Odeon ordered it.”
“Odeon?” He hesitated for a moment, and I knew I had him. Odeon’s name was a powerful one in the underground, no matter what city you were in, and I was quite happy the news of his death hadn’t travelled this far. I felt bad about using the old man’s name like this, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. Besides, it wouldn’t make a difference for the bastard, him being dead and all. “Who are you, exactly?”
“The name’s Nesta” I said, folding my arms over my chest and pretending I was growing irritated. “Let’s leave, Sylor. It’s pretty clear this guy doesn’t want us to get to the market.”
“Hold on!” Warren cried out. “I’ve heard of you, Nesta...and if this is what Odeon wants, then who am I to stop it?”
“Good thinking,” I grinned, holding Sylor’s arm as we passed through the sentry point. Sighing, he just leaned against the wall and holstered his weapon.
“Good work,” Sylor told me the moment we were out of earshot. “You can think fast on your fee
t.”
“Of course I can,” I said with a smile, feeling more than just a little proud. As promised, I had sneaked Sylor out of Nyheim, and I had brought him to Duvest. Now, only one thing remained.
We had to find the toxin.
Sylor
To say that I was confused and surprised would be akin to saying that the Vengeance was a cargo vessel.
The idea that there was yet another underground city blew my mind. The people of this planet knew nothing of their own kind, or of their own homes. She had walked me into a building as simple as anything and brought me through a small passageway down to this city.
This underground city that seemed to stretch out to be almost half the size of the city above. Small warrens connected to larger warrens. Underground roads made of discarded brick and stone from above, homes and lean-to style buildings built from corrugated metal, wattle-and-daub, and wood, and small hand-drawn carts filled the smaller warrens. The larger warrens were where the homes seemed to be arranged, as well as “outdoor” markets.
The market she took me to had no sense or reason to it. Most of the items there were illegal, broken, or most likely stolen. “Is this some sort of black market or something?” I asked Nesta quietly.
She shook her head.
“A relief organization trying to help people?” I suggested, knowing I was wrong, but hoping that it was.
She shook her head again as her shoulders shook in controlled laughter. “No. This has been around since long before the Xathi. They’ve been around for much longer than I’ve been alive,” she added.
“So, this has been under Duvest for a long time?” I asked as we sidestepped an overturned cart and headed towards a dark corner of the ‘market’.
“As long as I can remember. Some people back home say that this place is older,” she said.
“Do you believe that?”
She shrugged and pulled me around a corner and down another small street. At the end of the street were several buildings that stood at least three levels in height, and each building was home to a different herbalist shop on the ground floor. I counted five shops in total.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Where we go for answers,” Nesta said cryptically. She led me to the most run-down looking of the five shops, knocked six times on the door, then entered, pulling me in with her. The interior of the shop was filled with numerous shelves filled with herbs, plants, and powders of various colors. Many more hung from the ceiling, giving the shop an almost outdoor quality to it.
The scents that wafted around the interior of the shop were a mixture of something sweet, something mint, something citrus, and something almost rotting. I recognized some of the plants that were inside. I didn’t know what their names were, but I had seen them before.
“My darling Nesta,” came an elderly voice from a dark and smoky corner of the shop. A small woman that was nearly as round as she was tall, and she was not tall, waddled from behind a counter and approached Nesta, her arms opened wide. Her gray hair seemed to be pasted onto her head, while her wrinkles made her facial features difficult to make out clearly.
Nesta, with a massive smile on her face and genuine joy in her voice, greeted the woman with a big hug. “Gamma Prym.” The two women hugged and spoke in quiet tones as I stood, waiting uncomfortably, near the entrance. As I waited and perused the shop, the women talked, occasionally gesturing towards me and sharing smiles.
There was an almost familial aspect to their relationship despite the fact that they looked nothing alike. I wondered at their relationship. Were they, in fact, related? Was Ms. Prym her grandmother, as Nesta had called her, or was that just a moniker used by everyone to refer to the little old woman?
Eventually, after I had gone up and down each of the shop’s four aisles several times, Nesta called me over. “Sylor, this is Gamma Prym. Gamma Prym, this is Sylor. He’s what’s known as a Valorni,” she said during her introduction.
I felt a bit uncomfortable as Gamma Prym looked me up and down. It felt a bit like an interrogator sizing up someone that they were getting ready to question. I felt thoroughly violated and frisked by the time she was done looking me over. “You’re one of those aliens that came falling from the sky, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “That is affirmative.”
“Hm.” She didn’t seem impressed. She turned back to Nesta and patted her on the arm as she went back behind her counter. A moment later, her little head popped up from behind the counter as she settled herself on what I assumed to be a stool. “What did you need, my dear?”
“Well, you remember the weird attack that happened on the other side of Duvest a little while ago?” Nesta started, using the information I had given her as we had walked here.
“That I do, dearie,” Gamma Prym said with a nod. “What about it?”
“Well, according to Sylor, the thing that attacked and created all of those holes in the surface is a massive plant-like creature and it’s built a huge dome over Nyheim using those vines,” Nesta explained.
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm,” our tiny shopkeeper said.
“Well,” Nesta continued. “There’s a toxin that Sylor and his people need, and they don’t have enough back in Nyheim.”
“And you were wondering if you could get some here,” Gamma finished.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. She looked at me in mock surprise, almost as if she had forgotten that I was even there. She cocked her head to the side and studied me, again.
“Tell me, Sylor the Valorni,” she said as her voice got low. “What is this creature and toxin that my darling Nesta is telling me about?”
“A giant sentient plant using its vines and shoots is threatening Nyheim. We believe the only thing that can stop it is either Narrissi extract, a variation, or something similar. Unfortunately, our scientists have only a small sample. They don’t have enough to synthesize more.”
“I see. And now you need this,” she looked at Nesta for a moment, “Narrissi extract, you called it?”
“That’s right, Gamma.”
Prym nodded knowingly. “This toxin has many names. And it has underlying properties that I know you’re looking for. It’s not exactly a toxin, it’s actually a secretion from a living thing. The problem is, though, we don’t have any here.”
“Where can we get some?” I asked.
“That’s going to be the problem,” Prym said with a deep sigh. “No one has gone to harvest any since you and the bugs first crashed here. So, you won’t be able to get any from here.”
I nodded in understanding. What that meant was that we would have to go to the source and harvest some for ourselves, and since it was a secretion from some sort of living creature, the hope was that it would be something small and non-dangerous. These people had harvested it in the past, so whatever creature they would get it from had to be at least semi-tame.
“Very well,” I said in response. “Where do we go to get this secretion?”
“Well,” Prym answered slowly. “I want you to understand something. No one has gone to harvest the secretion since your arrival because of the attack. Most of our equipment was destroyed and we’re barely coming back to any sense of normality. However, even if we did have our equipment, there were only a few souls brave enough to venture into the home of the creature and get what you seek.”
“The creature is dangerous, then?” I asked.
She nodded. “It is.”
Regardless, I knew that we needed it and I was determined to go for it no matter the danger. If necessary, I would leave Nesta here with Prym while I traveled to wherever it was that I must go.
“Very well, I understand,” I responded. “However, the toxin is needed. I fear that without it, soon the entire city of Nyheim will be crushed when this creature decides to end its search and decides we are no longer worth leaving alive.”
With a heavy sigh, Gamma Prym nodded and looked to Nesta. “You are looking for a forest creature that lives within the Old Caver
ns. It is his teeth that hold the toxin. You must retrieve the teeth before they dry up and turn into dust.”
Nesta’s eyes went wide as she gasped. She knew what the creature was, while I remained in the dark. “No,” she gasped once again.
“I’m sorry, dearie,” Prym said gravely. “But it is the Kouldarc that you seek.”
“What is a Kouldarc?” I asked.
“The Kouldarc is an old creature, older than most of us know,” Prym answered me while she continued to look at Nesta. “It is dangerous, deadly to those not fast enough or strong enough. The Kouldarc lives in the Old Caverns, hunts at night, and rarely sees the day.”
“What sort of equipment is used normally?” I inquired. I glanced at Nesta to see that she was still in shock to discover what the creature was.
Prym snorted. “Weapons, and a small machine meant to extract the secretion.”
“And are there any more of these machines?” I asked.
She shook her head in the negative. “No. They were stored in a section of our warrens that the bugs found. There is nothing left.”
I nodded in understanding. “Very well. Weapons I have,” I said. “The rest, I’ll figure out when the time comes.”
Nesta looked at me in wonder. I winked at her and gave her a reassuring smile. I still did not know what a Kouldarc was. Prym’s description was extremely vague, but we needed the toxin. I would just have to make sure that I was better and faster that whatever this creature was.
Nesta
“Which way?” Sylor asked me the moment we stepped out of Gamma Prym’s shop. He had both hands on his hips, and he scanned the different streets in front of him with an attentive gaze. He was itching to make his way toward the Old Caverns, I could tell. I wondered if the idea of having to battle a blood-crazed Kouldarc was the reason behind his excitement. Even though Sylor seemed more cerebral than the other Valorni, the lust for battle still seemed to be a big part of him.